ISSUE 36                                                                                                                                                                                     JUNE 2019
As we endure a late spring snow, summer's abundance - sunlight, fresh produce, and longed for time outside of routine - is around the corner. It is easy to plan every minute with gardening and camps and get-aways and home projects. Long days invite us to over-schedule and squeeze everything into the warm extra hours of daylight.

Wisely then, our theme this month is beauty. Don't just do. Pay attention. As James Flaherty  wrote "Beauty is not decorative. It touches us deeply, dissolves our conscious control, and connects us to levels of our being well beyond our day-to-day concerns. Beauty pierces open a sharp clear space in which we directly encounter the immediacy of our experience. We know ourselves at that moment as beauty."

We are both creator and observer.

Thus, beauty asks something of us. As Rev. Mary Katherine Morn puts it:  "We are here, in religious community, not to protect our hearts from breaking. We are here together to borrow courage for the task of coming alive. We are here so that together we might heed the admonitions of beauty. Answer its call to create, protect, and preserve."

Maybe that is why Blaise Pascal famously noted that in difficult times, we should "carry something beautiful in your heart." Doing so calls us out of our small lives and petty concerns and insists that we answer a bigger call.

Summer Worship Series

Last fall, Jim Carrey received the Charlie Chaplin Award for Excellence in Comedy. In his acceptance speech, Carrey payed homage to Chaplin who he characterized as a hero of his. In his words:
 
[Chaplin] grew up in extreme poverty. His father was absent. His mother went into an asylum when he was 14 years old. That kind of pain turns some people into monsters. And others into fountains of creativity. Chaplin alchemized his pain. Turned it into art. Exquisite, timeless, healing art.
 
Carrey praised Chaplin as one of his heroes and in doing so explained that heroes "are people who remind us of our virtues."
 
For all the times that I have heard the word hero used, in my view, this was the clearest and best explanation. Moreover, in a religion like ours in which we are encouraged to live into our virtues and values to help shape the world we live in, it struck me as a critical invitation for each of us. Who are the people who remind me - by the way in which they live - of my own virtues?
 
For that reason, this summer our July and August worship series will invite members to name a hero and the virtue of which that life reminds them. Each of these reflections will be paired with a message from one of our ministers.
Each year Unitarian Universalists from across the nation gather at General Assembly (GA), a combination conference and business meeting with representatives from UU churches. It moves around the country to be more accessible to more people, and this year it is in Spokane, Washington. You might want to go, or you might be interested in what's happening, but have neither a week to spare, nor the cash to attend. So this year we're working on bringing GA to JUC.
 
Each year there are amazing speakers and wonderful workshops and powerful worship services at GA, and in recent years they've put many of them up online either as a livestream or with video records after the fact. There are also session when the business of our shared Unitarian Universalist Association are conducted, and all of that is now available without having to travel to the convention center. For the first time ever, we're experimenting with having the opportunity to watch those livestream events together at JUC. Rev. Wendy will be in Spokane in person, and I'll be hosting events on our campus with a connection to what's happening there. 

We can't bring you everything, but we've reserved spaces here at JUC to see a number of events, including the annual worship service that recognizes all the religious professionals making transitions this year, from starting in ministry, to credentialing as a religious educator, to retirements and deaths, the Service of the Living Tradition. Rev. Lindi Ramsden, Director of Partnerships and Emerging Programs at Starr King School for the Ministry, and former director of the UU Justice Ministry of California, will deliver the sermon at the 2019 Service of the Living Tradition Thursday June 20th at 8pm. We'll also livestream the annual Ware Lecture, this year given by the poet Richard Blanco, selected by President Obama as the fifth inaugural poet in U.S. history, he is the youngest and the first Latino, immigrant, and gay person to serve in such a role. That will happen Friday, June 21 at 8:30pm. 

Much of the shared formal business of the association is done in plenary sessions at GA. To help make that more accessible, I'll be hosting sessions to watch the plenary live on both Friday morning, June 21 from 10 a.m. - 1 p.m., and Saturday evening, June 22, from 5:30 - 6:30 p.m. See the General Assembly article to the right - you can serve as a delegate remotely by attending these sessions or at home.

Look at the building calendar for exact rooms for each of these events.
 
Lastly, we're going to try something else new, and bring the amazing Sunday morning GA worship experience to JUC. Because of concerns about internet connectivity, both ours and theirs, we won't host that live on the Sunday of GA. Instead we'll hold off a week and then the following Sunday, June 30, we'll have our regular Sunday morning service times, with live worship leaders and musicians, but a video of the sermon from GA. I hope to see you at many of these events, and if you're curious to learn more, visit the official UUA GA website.
The congregation I had been serving for fourteen years came to the conclusion that in order to call a new full-time minister they would have to downsize the full-time Director of Religious Education (DRE) position and the three-quarter-time Administrator position. Just like that, I was looking for a job. The phone rang and it was Rev. Wendy Williams. We had worked together on the Excellence in Shared Ministry Task Force a few years prior and had seen each other a couple times since and had hit it off from the start. She was calling to say, the JUC DRE was resigning and did I know of anyone I would recommend who might be looking for a job. "Well.....", I said, "I'm actually looking for a job." My husband, Mick and I had agreed that we would consider moving if the job would be professionally meaningful for me. A few months later, we were living in Golden, Colorado and my four years at JUC began.

There was much work to do to get workable, basic infrastructure in place for the elementary-aged program, in particular, and to develop a cadre of volunteer teachers who would love and guide JUC young people in their religious and spiritual journeys. And, there were a number of programs that were doing good work serving our middle and high school youth but were substantially separate from the larger mission of the church. Over the four years I've been at JUC we have: had monthly teacher meetings, that especially served K-5 th teachers; developed a Family Ministry Team that has passion and commitment to create a culture and programming that nurtures and guides them; put Safe Congregation guidelines in place to keep our young people safer while gathered at JUC; built bridges between SOUPS (Supporting our UU Parents) so they can continue to do the good work of supporting parents; created a theme-based ministry team and program so that children are exploring the same themes as their parents so their lives can be richer and more meaningful together; and created a community of young families who eat and worship together two evenings a month.

All of that feels deeply satisfying, and sadly, Mick and I will be leaving Colorado and JUC this July. Three things happened that caused us to leave a few years earlier than we had originally thought. First, two years ago, Mick was diagnosed with lung cancer. He's had two years of clear CT scans, so, phew! But there were surgical complications and it took him much, much longer to recover than originally estimated. Having our children and siblings a thousand miles away made that time much harder. At that same time, our youngest daughter, Leigh and her partner, Mitch, had a baby - Emmie - our first grandchild. Then a friend of twenty-five years died suddenly in her home in Nebraska of a massive heart attack. She was between us in age. That was really the last straw. We felt a deep aching to be near family again. So, I talked with Wendy and we began to make a plan for this last year.

My last Sunday at JUC will be our worship and picnic in the park on June 9. Then, I will attend the UUA's General Assembly and take some vacation time (to pack) and then on July 1-3, I'll spend time handing off the DRE job to Jules Jaramillo, your next DRE. She is a good friend and colleague of mine and it fills my heart to know that someone I love and respect will be next to serve this wonderful congregation and will love all the people that I love.

So, I leave with deep, deep gratitude to Rev. Wendy for reaching out to me and bringing me here. I am so grateful for the remarkable staff that will continue to serve and love this congregation. And there will always be an invisible thread that connects my heart and yours with love and caring.

I will follow the professional guidelines that say I must cut ties with you all for two years to make room for the next DRE to find her way among you. So, those of you who are Facebook friends, I will be unfriending you this summer. Down the road I hope to meet up again. Blessing on you all, to wonderful JUC and to our beloved faith.
In This Issue
Welcome Our New Members
Ashley Armstrong works for the state health department, and she enjoys travel, volunteering, and cats.

Ana Dyreson works at NREL, has a one-year-old son named Elden, and enjoys hiking, biking, and music.

Mitch & Connie Grabois are both retired, and they both enjoy spending time with their young grandchildren.

Marina Kelley is retired, and her hobbies include cooking, gardening, hiking, and music.

Mimi Michel is retired and spends her time gardening, reading, and adventuring.

Rachel Minor is an engineer who enjoys reading, hiking, and weight lifting. She is also Betty Minor's granddaughter. 

Jeremy Morrey works in space exploration, and he enjoys skiing, hiking, and travel. 

Lynn O'Donnell is retired, and her hobbies include ballroom dancing, hiking, and golf.

Gary and Marti Pratt are retired and spend their time drawing, painting, and knitting.

Don and Rae Wiseman are retired, and they enjoy travel and history.
Transitions
Sue Gunn died May 1. A memorial service at JUC is being planned.

Tim Fitzgerald died May 21. A memorial will be held at JUC on Saturday, June 1 at 1 p.m.

Former JUC member Dale Foreman died. Cards can be sent to his wife Betty at:
733A Canvasback Circle
Grand Junction, CO 81505
 
UUA General Assembly
June 19-23
Spokane, Washington

General Assembly is the annual meeting of our Unitarian Universalist Association. Attendees worship, witness, learn, connect, and make policy for the Association through democratic process. Anyone may attend; congregations must certify annually to send voting delegates. Learn more online.

If you are interested in being a JUC delegate to GA, please complete  this application. 
We Are Family
Wednesday, June 5
5:30 p.m. Dinner
6:30 p.m. Worship

Join us twice per month for a fellowship dinner ($5 per person) followed by a lively and brief family-centered worship. We use ritual, song and story for a multi-age worship that fills the heart and grows the spirit. All ages are encouraged to attend. 

This will be the last We Are Family of the church year and will include a special celebration for Annie Scott. Dinner will be a taco bar. Please sign up if you plan to attend.
Curiosity and Planned Giving
Is estate planning a curiosity for you? We often embrace curiosity as enriching our lives. But death? Not so much? Who wants to plan for death? Yet death is just as sure as birth. In between, curiosity can invite us to "wonder, wander and to get beyond the well-worn path of expectation and duty."

Doing estate planning in our earlier adult years can actually assist us in expanding our lives and that of others to include amazement and special experiences. JUC may have been (or will be) instrumental in your fully experiencing the world. 

Please consider including JUC in your estate plan as a beneficiary.

Contact JUC's planned giving coordinators: Bud Meadows , Mike Kramer or Carol Wilsey .
Mental Wellness Advocates Thank you
Thank you, thank you!

The Mental Wellness Advocates are grateful for your financial support of our efforts to raise money for NAMI Colorado. Through the NAMI Walk and our Special Plate Collection, we raised $4,325 to support their programs.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness in Colorado works to combat the stigma of mental illness. NAMI Colorado provides education, support and advocacy for persons who have a mental illness and their families. They offer many free programs and resources throughout the Denver Metropolitan area and Colorado.

If you or someone you know could benefit from NAMI's good work, please check out their website. Contact: Deda Nelson
Wrapping up a Year of Music Ministry
Here at JUC, the season of weekly rehearsals of our standing ensembles is coming to a close for a few short weeks - this is a look back at all we did this year in the music ministry of our church.

It is important for me to note at the beginning that the most vital and essential part of the music ministry in UU congregations and in our community is the weekly singing that is done by those who gather each Sunday morning: the congregational songs that form the backbone of communal participatory worship. The songs that we all sing, reinforced by repetition over time, are one of the main tools that connect us to our sense of belonging to this place, to this faith, and to one another. We focused on these songs this year in two services: one led by UU Musician and Minister Rev. Jason Shelton, and in a Music Sunday called "Our Songs."

The Children's and Youth Music Ministry enjoyed a robust year led by Director of Music for Children and Youth, Sarah Billerbeck. The Children's Choir, Radiance Choir, and Resonance Youth Choir were active in rehearsal and worship, with a highlight being the March 17 "The Search for the Most Amazing Thing in the Universe" Children's Music Service.

The JUC Ringers enjoyed weekly rehearsals and periodic ringing in services during the church year. With the departure of former directors Bev Curtiss and Lisa Bickford who both moved out of state, I directed this ensemble. The JUiCe Worship Band increased the number of of times that it played during the year, led by Adam Revell who engaged both JUC members and professional musicians to be a part of the band. 

First Friday Open Mic was an inviting and participatory part of the music ministry. Rick Fisher and Sarah Billerbeck had shepherded this open mic for three years, and this year turned the leadership back to FFOM's founders Chris and Steef Sealy. Monthly Evensong services offered an opportunity to deepen through the practice of chant and song.

The auditioned JUC Treble Choir had its second year of life as part of our community, providing an opportunity for musical participation that complemented the JUC Choir. The JUC Choir, accompanied by Laura Lizut, began the year with a choir retreat at Sunrise Ranch near Loveland featuring UU musician Nick Page. A music service in November entitled "Remembrances" featured part of Fauré's Requiem and "All of us" from Considering Matthew Shepard. Christmas Eve services were filled with music at all six services, including the JUC Choir singing with a guest brass quintet. In the spring, the highlight of the choir season was clearly the Awakening to Blessing cantata, performed at Bethany Lutheran Church with five other UU choirs, a combined UU children's choir, orchestra and handbells.

In addition to the fabulous staff team of Sarah Billerbeck, Laura Lizut, and Adam Revell, JUC's Music Ministry is made possible by countless volunteer singers and instrumentalists. Some of these who performed during the last year are Dave Cadwallader, Dave Bakulski, Michael Kelley, Steef and Chris Sealy, the singers of Sophia's Journey, Julia and Libbie Wilson, Judith Galecki, and Bettina Schaden. A sincere thanks to all of the tremendous volunteers and staff who come together to open hearts through music, enabling people to connect to something larger than themselves and inspiring people to meet their lives with courage and joy.
 
Living a Life of Beauty
My husband and I just returned from a trip to Ireland, and it's appropriate to be writing this article during a month where the worship theme is beauty.

Usually, if either my husband or I or both of us leave town, it's to visit family or for business. The main focus of this particular trip was to seek beauty. Aside from a visit to Cong, where one of our favorite movies, The Quiet Man, was filmed and an Irish Premier League soccer match, we had no agenda, no historic "must sees," no one to visit. We simply stopped in whatever charming villages caught our eyes with pretty cottages lining narrow streets. We saw dramatic cliffs, water, and bluer, sunnier skies than everyone, including the Irish, said we had any business expecting to see. There were hedgerows and low stone walls partitioning green fields dotted with sheep and cows. Muckross National Park in Killarney alone has enough beauty to take one's breath away for days on end.

As I grow older, I find that I am more inclined to experience beauty for its own sake. Beauty, not to possess, but simply to enjoy. One of the things I love about our older townhouse is the complex's big stretches of green space with 50-year-old trees that I have loved watching progress through the seasons as I walk our dogs.

I find it intriguing that humans are hard-wired to appreciate beauty. We are awestruck by nature. We spend hours of our lives creating beauty - in arts and crafts, music, and poetry. We mark the passage of years with beautiful lights, decorated sweets, and colors that invoke a love of place and time. JUC's own community has expressed the importance of natural beauty in finding a new church home. This awe, this gathering of beauty around us, this is worship in its deepest form. As spring turns to summer this month, may you revel in the richness of all that is beautiful.
 
This month 50 years ago, the start of a beautiful movement began. The Stonewall Inn, a local bar, was raided by police officers under the auspices of a larger crackdown on liquor licenses across New York City. This establishment was a safe place for those with nowhere else to go - transgender folks, homeless youth, drag queens, and other misunderstood groups that were routinely ostracized even within the LGBTQ+ community. Rather than let their sanctuary be taken from them, the patrons of the Stonewall resisted and sparked a riot that led to the modern movement for LGBTQ+ rights.

June was later chosen as Pride Month to honor these Stonewall Riots. A year afterward, pride parades started popping up across major metropolitan areas in the US. What started as an act of protest and rebellion also became a celebration of diversity. One weekend every June since then, the inherent beauty of our queer community is lifted up in all of its colorful wonderfulness.

The anniversary of Stonewall weighs on my mind. Half a century has brought us far, and there is still so much more to do - most especially for those selfsame groups that started a cultural revolution for us all. Pride gives us a chance to be a part of that beautiful and ongoing history. For a day or two, we all can celebrate the work of those before us and get a glittery glimpse of a freer world.

I am organizing this year's UU contingent at the Denver PrideFest Parade, being held Sunday, June 16  at 9:30 a.m. If you're interested in being part of our parade group, please sign up today! There will also be a table on upcoming Sundays between services if you'd like to sign-up then. Please consider showing your colors with us at this year's PrideFest. All are welcome!
Habitat for Humanity Update

JUCers Are Builders

Thirteen JUCers turned out on Saturday, May 18 to work residential construction at H4H's newest site, Swansea Homes. Many thanks to Julie and Ken Andrus; Debra and Jon Kitner; Cathy and Bruce Martin; Stephanie Wells, Liam and Steve Telgener; and Carol, Brett, and Jay Wilsey. We put in a full day installing subfloors in two duplexes: cutting and carrying plywood, caulking joints, and lots of nail hammering. Hard work, but well worth the effort. It was gratifying to see the progress we had made in just one day. Hard-working families will move into these houses when they're finished, and the experience will be life-changing. For the first time, they will know what it means to live in a safe, stable neighborhood in a home they can call their own.
 
JUC is a member of Jeffco Interfaith Partners, a coalition of churches which sponsors one H4H home every year. Sponsorship means raising the seed money ($40,000-$80,000) and supplying the volunteer labor. We're on our 20th home this year. H4H came to Denver in 1979 and has served over 1000 local families. And for every house built in the U.S., one is built overseas as well.
 
Our next build day is Friday, August 2. Sign up here. Construction will be much farther along by then, so we're sure to be participating in a different aspect of the process. But whatever we end up doing, it's guaranteed to be fun and fulfilling.


 
Going Deeper - In the Community

As part of the Going Deeper Groups, each year a group is supposed to select one volunteer activity and then pursue that activity prior to the groups concluding for the year. Each Going Deeper group selects an activity based on the group's interests and abilities. You might find members serving coffee or beautifying the grounds or you may hear about groups that have done external projects. This year, I facilitated a group that chose to do an external project. 

My group chose to work a shift during the National Association of Letter Carriers Stamp Out Hunger food drive. The food drive is held at local entity Community Table's location in Arvada. Our job was separating the donations into categories of dry goods, canned goods, perishable items, pet items and sundries. This year, Community Table collected over 80,873 pounds of goods. We are proud to be a small part of all the work done in our community by the JUC family. The Going Deeper groups will kick off a new year in the Fall. Please consider getting involved with a group that works for your schedule.

 
 
Keeping the Promise
Gillie Bishop

JUC uses a year round pledge system in which each household is asked annually, during their pledging month, to consider their pledge for the following twelve months.

When I came to JUC in 2001, it was love at first Sunday. I joined and began pledging after my Path to Membership class in 2002, and I was active right from the start. I made coffee and ushered and volunteered in the nursery...and I started teaching Sunday school when the first new church year rolled around. But, for my first few years, I was really only a consumer of JUC. It wasn't until about 2006 that I became a stakeholder.

That year, I attended a weekend Mamas' Retreat hosted by Kristi Reeves. The mamas at that retreat spent a lot of time talking about what we wanted our kids' experiences at JUC to be like. We wanted our kids to know UU hymns. We wanted them to value the earth. We wanted them to have close church friends. We wanted our kids to love coming to church and to develop a sense of UU identity. We  wanted to have close church friends to share our parenting journeys. We talked and talked and talked about what we could do to make our vision a reality at JUC.

When we came down from the mountains, we started to make things happen. Sarah Reeves recruited the amazing Sarah Billerbeck to develop our children's music program. She and Marci Sontag went on to take many leadership roles in the church. Ann-Marie Marquis developed the wildly successful SOUPPs program for parents of preschoolers. Kristi Reeves founded CURK, which did much of the work now done by the Family Ministry Committee. Kristi and Julia Wilson created the Nature's Keepers program that has blessed so many of JUCs 4 th & 5 th graders. Jennifer Roberts and I joined the YRE committee and eventually became its chairs. For the last few years, I have been teaching Neighboring Faiths and helping to write curriculum for our Kindergarten through 5 th graders. At that power retreat, we all became members who were not only active but felt responsible for making this place better.

It was at this time, too, that my pledge calculation changed. I had been giving a small donation each month, an amount similar to what I might give to a friend doing a walk for a cause, an amount I didn't think we would notice coming out of our bank account. I began to think about what percentage  of our family income I wanted to give to JUC. I did  want us to notice our pledge amount. I wanted it to remind me that I am a stakeholder in this church; a producer and not just a consumer; not just a mover and shaker, but a mover and shaper .

It's OK to be a consumer of JUC, if that's what you need at the moment. But this year, when your pledge month comes around, I encourage you to think about whether you might be ready to become a stakeholder, and I hope you will increase your pledge.